Six Months of Francie!

Dear Francie,

You are halfway to your first birthday, baby girl (as of yesterday)! Six months. I say this every month, but it just feels just we've known you for so much longer. It's hard to even remember life before you.

We've had a fun month with you! You're becoming much more interactive and alert. You smile more and more, and you belly laugh a good bit too. Still the sweetest sound in the world :) You're still an incredibly easy and content baby. You're almost never fussy and you hardly ever cry. I love that you're so happy!

The biggest recent milestone is that we've started solids! At first we just introduced rice cereal to see if you were ready to eat something off of a spoon, You did great and lapped up the whole bowl we had made for you! You've since had avocado and sweet potato. I'm planning on making all of your baby food. Hopefully I can keep up with your appetite! Speaking of your appetite, it had gotten to be a struggle to get you to take 5 bottles a day. You just didn't seem hungry when it was time for the next bottle. So we recently dropped a bottle but increased the amount you get at each feeding. You now drink 28 ounces a day of formula and eat one solid meal (with another ounce of formula mixed in with the solids). We're going to the doctor for your 6 month checkup this week, so we'll see how your weight is looking and decide whether we need to adjust this schedule :)

Another big milestone is that we totally transitioned you to sleeping in your bed in your own room. Moving you to your own room at night was a pretty seamless transition. Naps were a little harder, but not by much. You were used to napping in your swing, so I was worried that you wouldn't like napping in your bed, but you caught on pretty quickly. The transition did change your schedule a bit- instead of taking a morning nap and a LONG afternoon nap, you now take three shorter naps a day- but that's ok with me! You are on a different schedule than your siblings now. You're usually napping when they're awake and up when they're having rest time. You're so happy and content that I don't even mind that I don't get a complete break in the afternoon. You still love to lay on the floor and kick and play, so I'm able to get some things done while they rest... plus, I enjoy the one-on-one time with you :) You even do really well at going to sleep by yourself in your bed. Sometimes you fuss when I put you down, so I end up rocking you to sleep. I don't mind that at all, either :)

We also quit swaddling you to sleep. You now just sleep in a sleep sack. We only started this a few days ago, so it's still very new, but so far so good! You're really pretty go with the flow, and I love this about you. I went in to check on you while you were napping the other day, and I caught you sucking your thumb since your hand was free. Melt. my. heart.

We went to the urologist for a checkup a couple of weeks ago. This was your first time to see a urologist since we left Johns Hopkins in November, so we were anxious for a good report. And, praise the Lord, we got one! You had an ultrasound of your bladder and kidneys and everything looked just as it should. Your daddy and I were so happy and thankful to hear that! You don't have to go back to the urologist for 6 months.

You're getting so big! At the urologist, you weighed 14 pounds, 11 ounces (that was fully clothed) and you wear a size 6 months in clothes and a size 2 diaper. You have the fuzziest little blonde hair. It sticks straight up, and it's about the cutest thing I've ever seen, Your hair is SO light. It's almost white. Maybe you'll be a little cotton top :) Your eyes are still beautiful and blue.

Francie, we just cannot get enough of you! Everyone who meets you loves you.... it's impossible to interact with you for even a minute and not smile. You're so precious, and we are excited to watch you grow.

I love you, sweet girl!
Mommy